The Notebooking Daily 2020 Writing Series is a daily writing exercises for both prose writers and poets to keep your creative mind stretched and ready to go—fresh for your other writing endeavors. The writing prompts take the impetus—that initial crystal of creation—out of your hands (for the most part) and changes your writing creation into creative problem solving. Instead of being preoccupied with the question "What do I write" you are instead pondering "How do I make this work?" And in the process you are producing new writing.
These exercises are not meant to be a standard writing session. They are meant to be productive and to keep your brain thinking about using language to solve simple or complex problems. The worst thing you can do is sit there inactive. It's like taking a 5 minute breather in the middle of a spin class—the point is to push, to produce something, however imperfect. If you don't overthink them, you will be able to complete all of the exercises in under 30 minutes.
#194
Inspired by the Public Domain 2#194
For today's writing exercise you will look at a short piece of writing that is in the public domain. Carl Sandburg is a powerful poet, the quintessential "Chicago Poet" you might even say. This poem isn't one of his more anthologized pieces, so it may be new to a lot of you. It was originally published in Vanity Fair in June of 1922 (the same year it was in his collection, actually), and includes a good variation between very long and normal-length. So that said, from Carl Sandburg's collection Slabs of the Sunburnt West here is the short poem "Hazardous Occupations"
Hazardous Occupations
Jugglers keep six bottles in the air.Club swingers toss up six and eight.The knife throwers miss each other's ears by a hair and the steel quivers in the target wood.The trapeze battlers do a back-and-forth high in the air with a girl's feet and ankles upside down.So they earn a living—til they miss once, twice, even three times.So they live on hate and love as gypsies live in satin skins and shiny eyes.In their graves do the elbows jostle once in a blue moon—and wriggle to throw a kiss answering a dreamed-of applause?Do the bones repeat: It's a good act—we got a good hand....?
- by Carl Sandburg
So, questionable ideas of the Roma people aside (wokeness in 1922 was a little different, so let's look at that line as merely descriptive in the second half, and him calling them 'fiery' and 'impassioned' in today's speak), this poem considers circus-folk with dangerous jobs and their inevitable 'retirement'. Published in his 1922 collection, when travelling circuses were still very much a thing, I think this poem is one that would be easy to make your own in translating it or some aspect of it to the modern day.
1) Look at this list of the most dangerous jobs in the US. Write a poem about a place where either groups of one of these professionals, or better yet, multiple people of these professions are together. It could be a bar, a Caribbean Cruise, a jail cell, a concert (as chaperone fathers at a teen pop concert might perhaps be an interesting contrast). While you have these people that work in hazardous occupations together, it's up to you how you discuss what makes their jobs dangerous, if they actually interact, if you go into the future to their demise as Sandburg did—my job was just to get them together in your piece, your job is to figure out how their presence/existence is informed by Sandburg's poem in your own piece.
Inspired By Writing Exercises for "Hazardous Occupations"
1) Look at this list of the most dangerous jobs in the US. Write a poem about a place where either groups of one of these professionals, or better yet, multiple people of these professions are together. It could be a bar, a Caribbean Cruise, a jail cell, a concert (as chaperone fathers at a teen pop concert might perhaps be an interesting contrast). While you have these people that work in hazardous occupations together, it's up to you how you discuss what makes their jobs dangerous, if they actually interact, if you go into the future to their demise as Sandburg did—my job was just to get them together in your piece, your job is to figure out how their presence/existence is informed by Sandburg's poem in your own piece.
2) Title Mania: Write your own story or poem titled "Hazardous Occupations". Include the image of someone's skeleton/corpse in the grave making a movement.
3) Write a piece about elderly or 'retired' performers of the unique/obscure profession and address muscle memory, the idea that after doing the same motion year after year, your muscles can repeat it by rote, without your brain doing as much as it normally would.
4) Structural Reproduction: Write an 8-lined poem in which the first two lines are a 'normal' length, then the later lines stretch beyond the carriage (onto a second line, as in a very long line).
5) 5 Words from the poem: Jugglers, Quivers, Ankles, Applause, Repeat
6) Outdated terms: Seize on Sandburg's problematic description of "Gypsies". It is far from the worst phrasing you'll find in poetry of the day, but looking back it's a little cringey. Write a piece that includes an older character and some colloquial terms they used/use that are no longer seen as acceptable. Be careful not to leave any ambiguity about embracing the term (people are extra sensitive to that), so it's best to avoid anything too charged and keep it light.
7) Other: Find some other inspiration from the poem. It's open-ended. Be inspired.
6) Outdated terms: Seize on Sandburg's problematic description of "Gypsies". It is far from the worst phrasing you'll find in poetry of the day, but looking back it's a little cringey. Write a piece that includes an older character and some colloquial terms they used/use that are no longer seen as acceptable. Be careful not to leave any ambiguity about embracing the term (people are extra sensitive to that), so it's best to avoid anything too charged and keep it light.
7) Other: Find some other inspiration from the poem. It's open-ended. Be inspired.
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If you'd like some background music to write to, try this "Guitar vibe" lofi mix.
